Nokia Cuts 300 IT Jobs, Outsources 820 More

Nokia has said it will cut more than 1,000 IT jobs as part of a previously-announced restructuring programme at the Finnish manufacturer.

The company will outsource its IT operations to two Indian suppliers, HCL Technologies and Tata Consultancy Services. As part of the move, 820 mostly Finnish-based workers will be transferred to the two companies, meaning that 300 jobs will be lost in total.

Nokia job cuts

Nokia’s workforce has been slashed by around a third since CEO Stephen Elop assumed control and these latest job cuts are part of a massive cost reduction programme announced last June. Nokia said it wanted to cut 10,000 jobs in June and reduce its device and services expenses to around €3 billion by 2013.

It has shed non-essential business arms such as its luxury phone subsidiary Vertu and in March announced that it was cutting 1,000 jobs in its native Finland.

The timing of these latest cuts is somewhat surprising as only last week, Nokia announced better than expected results for the fourth quarter of 2012. This was attributed to mobile phone sales of 86.4 million units, including 6.6 million smartphones, worth £3.2 billion.

The figures were an improvement on the third quarter of 2013 where it posted an operating loss of £467 million. However, this was still an improvement on losses of £1.2 billion in the second quarter and £1.1 billion loss it sustained in the first quarter.

However, Nokia has said that the first quarter of 2013 will be less profitable thanks to the competitive environment and the fact that it is traditionally a tough sales period.

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